documenting the BL fan experience
Fandom is still mostly on the internet, we don’t really meet except for friends who I knew before and we discovered we both liked BL. When I was living in France I would go to conventions, expos or in cafes to meet friends who liked…
I was watching prince of tennis and I used to come across a lot of m/m fanwork, and the first pair I ever liked was the Silver Pair (Choutarou/Shishido). Some explit work was too much for me as I was young at the time. And…
I was never a fan of romance but in high school decided to give popular shojo anime a chance, which gave me more disappointment than anything. At that time BL was as popular as ever so I tried one day reading a random BL manga without any high expectations at all, and surprisingly enough I actually liked it. Since then I got hooked, as most of the time BL provides romance that’s really good and satisfying. Where I live is an extra homophobic place, which is why fans are divided into two groups: one consumes and loves BL totally but are against real life gays, and the other group just chills liking BL as well as supporting LGBT people.
— 22, She/Her, Egypt
Getting content is a dilemma because if hadn’t pirated BL would not have existed. I would have never come across it online. It is hard for me to find it legally. I have a Futekiya account and Crunchyroll and Netflix, but the selections are very…
My first BL experience is linked to fan work. I was around 8 and I actually through that Oscar from Versailles no Bara was a guy so I thought he/she was a gay couple with André. My first experience with “real BL” was from the…
